Aerobic exercise is a popular form of exercise that improves one's cardiovascular health by reducing blood pressure and providing other benefits to the human body. Aerobic exercise generally involves low intensity physical exertion over a long duration of time. Typically, the human body can adequately supply enough oxygen to meet the body's demands at the intensity levels involved with aerobic exercise. Popular forms of aerobic exercise include running, jogging, swimming and cycling, among others activities. In contrast, anaerobic exercise typically involves high intensity exercises over a short duration of time. Popular forms of anaerobic exercise include strength training and short distance running.
Many choose to perform aerobic exercises indoors, such as in a gym or their home. Often, a user will use an aerobic exercise machine to have an aerobic workout indoors. One such type of aerobic exercise machine is a treadmill, which is a machine that has a running deck attached to a support frame. The running deck can support the weight of a person using the machine. The running deck incorporates a conveyor belt that is driven by a motor. A user can run or walk in place on the conveyor belt by running or walking at the conveyor belt's speed. The speed and other operations of the treadmill are generally controlled through a control module that is also attached to the support frame and within a convenient reach of the user. The control module can include a display, buttons for increasing or decreasing a speed of the conveyor belt, controls for adjusting a tilt angle of the running deck or other controls. Other popular exercise machines that allow a user to perform aerobic exercises indoors include ellipticals, rowing machines, stepper machines and stationary bikes, to name a few.
One type of treadmill is disclosed in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2012/0010053 issued to Douglas G. Bayerlein, et al. In this reference, a manually operated treadmill and methods of using the same are provided. The treadmill includes a treadmill frame having a front end and a rear end opposite the front end, a front shaft rotatably coupled to the treadmill frame at the front end, a rear shaft rotatably coupled to the treadmill frame at the rear end, and a running belt including a curved running surface upon which a user of the treadmill may run. The running belt is disposed about the front and rear shafts such that force generated by the user causes rotation of the front shaft and the rear shaft and also causes the running surface of the running belt to move from the front shaft toward the rear shaft. The treadmill is configured to control the speed of the running belt to facilitate the maintenance of the contour of the curved running surface. Another type of treadmill is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,690,738 issued to Alex A. Astilian, et al. Each of these references is herein incorporated by reference for all that they contain.